Monday, January 23, 2017

Falling in Love, One Book at a Time - Portrait of a Bookshop

from
Janet Marsh of the Highland Bookshop Mysteries by Molly MacRae

Do
you have a favorite bookstore? I’ve had several favorites over the years,
including a couple of lovely shops on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, one in
Tennessee, and one in Champaign, Illinois. But now that my partners and I have
our own shop, I only have eyes for Yon Bonnie Books.

Like
so many shops along the High Street in Inversgail, ours looks as though it
could have sprung straight out of an illustrated classic. Something by Sir
Walter Scott or Ian Maclaren, I think, or one of their sentimental colleagues
from the turn of the last century. The shop’s granite blocks and windows are trimmed
in dark green, giving the exterior exactly the right look for a bookshop.

The
shop’s floor is polished wood. The walls are plaster and each wall is painted
in a primary color. The books are displayed on an assortment of ornate antique
book cases and modern Scandinavian shelves. There are easy chairs with floor
lamps beside them scattered throughout the shop, and a group of comfy chairs around
the fireplace. We play lilts, airs, and classical music in the background. The
space is bright, attractive, and cozy all at the same time.

We
carry a wide range of books for the tourist trade, including travel guides,
bird, plant, and rock guides, maps, Scottish cookbooks, Scottish folklore and
myths, the works of classic Scottish writers (Burns, Scott, Stevenson,
McGonagall, etc.) and contemporary Scottish writers (Rowling, Rankin, McDermid,
McPherson, Banks, May, etc.), plus a wide selection of mass market paperbacks
for rainy day vacationers (including, of course, all the best classic and cozy
mysteries).

The
bookshop is approaching its centenary, having been started in 1919 by Stuart
Farquhar, an officer in the elite Black Watch regiment during the Great War.
Farquhar left the military after the war, returned to Inversgail, and opened
Yon Bonnie Books. He saw the shop as a way of bringing the world to the
village. It was also a form of mental therapy for a young man who’d seen too
much of the world. After his death in
1979, Farquhar’s daughter ran the shop. She sold the business to Kenneth and Pamela
Lawrie in 2002. And the Lawries sold the business to us.

“Us”
is me, Janet Marsh, along with my longtime friend Christine Robertson, my
daughter Tallie Marsh, and her old college roommate Summer Jacobs.

I am a bookshop haunter. I have to visit every indi shop we find while travelling because you'll never know what treasure you can find. I totally enjoyed Molly's new book and am looking forward to the next one in this new Scottish Bookshop series.

Thank you for your kind words, Nora. I'll pass them along to Molly. And if you're ever in Scotland, please do make your way to Inversgail. You won't be sorry, and we'll be happy to see you at Yon Bonnie Books.

I have had the pleasure of reading this book. First, I love all bookshops and this one makes me want to walk in the door find a book and sit under one of those lamps. The book is terrific and the ladies are creating a destination where one can read and possibly have a snack right next door or even better rent a room upstairs and never leave.

We had a good independent bookstore named Thackeray's (after the writer) here in Toledo but it closed around 2005. I guess it closed because Borders was opening a few miles away at the mall and Barnes & Noble was also across from the mall. Scottish Cats, the book pictured, caught my eye even though I'm not into poetry.

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